


Some Kind of Monster

by flyingcarpet



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Faith and Dean fight evil together, Mutual suspicion, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:07:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingcarpet/pseuds/flyingcarpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some kind of monster is killing children in small-town California. But when Dean investigates, he begins to suspect that the mysterious woman he's just met is connected to the crimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rover, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to LilyValley73, without whom this story would never have been written at all, and to Flora for expert editing. All real places in this story are used fictitiously, and most of them are places I've never been -- so, apologies for any inaccuracies. Extended author's note, including song credits, is [here on my lj](http://r-becca.livejournal.com/594980.html).

Blood sped through Dean's veins, his heart pounded against his rib cage, sweat dripped down his spine and pooled in the small of his back. A powerful feeling of peace and well-being swept through his torso and spread out through his limbs, chasing away the tension that had been building in every muscle. He dropped his forehead to rest on the dirty tile of the bathroom wall and drew in a deep, ragged breath.

The girl beside him -- beneath him -- wrapped around him -- arched her back and stretched like a cat with a low, satisfied moan. One of Dean's hands was still on her breast, and the movement pushed them together all over again. "Oh, hell yeah," she said. "I needed that."

"Happy to help," Dean said, grinning into her dark hair, still floating on the endorphin high. She smelled like sex and beer and secondhand smoke, and it was a beautiful thing. "Anytime."

With reluctance, he moved his hand to the wall behind her and pushed himself away, grasping the end of the condom with his fingers as he pulled out and then slid it off his softening cock. He turned and tossed it in the john, wiped his fingers on a piece of toilet paper, and flushed. When he turned back, she'd pulled her tank top into place and was snapping up her pants. Everything about this girl was hot, but it was the pants that had really sealed the deal for Dean -- smooth black leather just molded to the curve of her ass like she'd been born in them, moving with the sway and swagger of her hips as she walked.

"I got a hotel room not far from here," he said. Even though it was obvious she was on her way out, Dean couldn't resist trying for round two.

"Maybe next time," she said, finishing her pants and fluffing out her dark hair. "I got a few things to take care of tonight." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tube of red lipstick, then swiped it on her mouth without seeming to consider or worry about where it went. Dean watched, enjoying the sight, forgetting that his own pants were still undone, his shirt tossed over the stall door.

She slipped the lipstick back into her pocket and smiled up at Dean, every moment of their sweaty coupling contained in the tilt of her lips.

"Thanks, Handsome," she said, and slapped his ass hard enough that he staggered forward a step. She moved around him toward the door leading back to the bar. "I'll see you around."

Dean put his clothes on again and wiped the lipstick off his chin and neck, but by the time he got back into the bar she was gone. He'd never even gotten her name, he realized. He drank another beer, the cold liquid soothing to his overheated nerves. She didn't come back, so he just leaned against the wall, drinking and watching the crowd through the thick, smoky air. It was the kind of little road stop place that probably had a lot of fights on payday, and there was an ebb and flow to it, low conversation and music on the jukebox, denim and flannel. Dean sat outside, apart from the locals and the truckers and the barflies, just drinking and watching and letting his mind play on the girl in the leather pants.

She'd stood out in the crowd of this place; he'd seen her the moment he walked in. And yeah, she was hot, but it wasn't just that. She was kind of short, with a curvy body and dark brown hair that flipped this way and that as she moved. She shouldn't have been anyone unusual, but there was something about her that stood out like a beacon, and it was obvious she wasn't a local -- she fit in with them like a wolf among sheep. It was in the way she moved through that grimy bar like a predator on the prowl, standing tall and confident, eyes alert, separate and apart from everyone else in the place.

Dean was in Truckee for business, not pleasure, but after he had this case wrapped up, he planned to come back here and celebrate with Miss Leather Pants. The more he thought about round two -- and three, and four -- the more brilliant it sounded.

But the hunt had to come first.

Something in this little town had eaten three children and left the crumbs scattered all over a school playground. Three families torn apart, six grieving parents without answers. And somewhere out there a thing with teeth and an unnatural hunger that would strike again. For two weeks, Dean had hunted that thing in every way he knew. He'd learned the route from the dead kids' homes to school backward and forward. He'd interviewed their families, neighbors, teachers, the school principal, and everyone else he could think of. He'd spent hours and hours hunched over a little table in the library and the hall of records. His guns were clean three times over and the Impala was shining with fresh wax. And he hadn't managed to find anything.

Two weeks. Two wasted, frustrating weeks, and he was sitting alone in a diner eating a hamburger and soggy fries. There hadn't been any more deaths, which was good. But something had eaten those kids, and he hadn't killed it yet, which meant that it was still out there. Dean couldn't shake the feeling that it would be back.

Out of frustration, he'd gone back to that truck stop bar, hoping for a cold drink and maybe another shot at the brown-haired girl. But no one had seen hide or hair of her since she'd told Dean she had a few things to take care of, apparently. She was gone, left town. And the killings had stopped, too. At the same time. A pretty strange coincidence there, and Dean didn't believe in coincidences. A flicker of an idea crossed his mind, but he shrugged it off. He refused to believe he'd had the killer in his hands, fucked her in a damn bathroom stall, and let her go. Time to get the hell out of Truckee and find a job he could do something about.

In the back corner of the diner parking lot, Dean flipped open his phone and leaned back against the Impala as he hit 'send.' Pine trees crowded in at the edges of the pavement, pushing up roots under the asphalt and casting their shadows over the roof, even though it was barely three o'clock. In the distance, the Sierra Nevadas rose high above the trees, their peaks and valleys distinct in the thin mountain air.

He wondered sometimes, would his father notice if he didn't call in with reports? What would he do? It was a question that would probably never be answered, because Dean kept right on calling. Sometimes John answered the phone, sometimes not. Dean would just leave a message and move on with the next hunt until he heard back -- it was getting longer and longer between calls now.

This time, John answered his phone on the first ring. "Dean."

"Dad," Dean answered, fighting the urge to stand up straight and look sharp. His dad couldn't see him; he was a thousand miles away in Oklahoma. "Nothing here," he said simply, bracing himself for disapproval or anger.

"What do you mean, nothing there?" Everything about this had been easier when they were in the same place. They could cover more ground this way, but what was the point of covering the ground if he couldn't get the job done?

"Whatever ate those kids, it's not here anymore." Dean tried to explain, even though he wasn't sure he understood it himself. "There were a few tracks, a few leads, but they were just dead ends. No one saw anything since right after the last killing, and even then, nothing useful." He could hear his own voice rising and stopped himself, gritting his teeth to keep the words from coming, then swallowed and waited for his father's response. This thing wasn't going to take care of itself, and there was no one here to get rid of it besides Dean. He felt like he'd failed, he'd missed something and let this monster slip through his grasp.

"You're sure about this one, Dean? You covered all your bases?"

"Asked everyone," Dean said. "Checked everywhere." His voice was even and calm but his left fist was clenched against the solid steel of the Impala. "Parents, teachers, neighbors, scoutmasters. School, home, church, playground. There was something here, but I'm telling you it's gone. No one saw anything unusual."

"It happens," John said. "Sometimes they just get away. We'll keep an eye out for this thing, and as soon as it shows up again we'll get it." That was less than comforting, since it could be years until it made itself known by eating a few more kids.

Dean let out a breath, looking over the Impala into the encroaching forest. A hunter had to follow instinct and all of his were telling him this creature was gone -- or dead. But he didn't know why, and something about that rubbed him the wrong way. If he hadn't taken it out, and there was no one else to do the job, then where did it go? The truth was, he had seen some strange things in Truckee -- a footprint here, a hesitation there. And a girl in leather pants, acting like she owned this little granola-and-flannel town, gone when the killings stopped.

Dean didn't mention any of that to his father, though. All he said was "Yes, sir. Any leads nearby, then?" He read the newspapers himself, of course, read between the lines of everything from the _National Enquirer_ to the _San Francisco Chronicle_, but this was what John Winchester did best, and Dean was the only one left to follow his orders right now. If Sammy wanted to run off to college and leave them behind, that was his business, but Dean would stay and do what needed to be done.

"There's a haunted house in Tahoe could use some looking into," said John. "And then a couple disappearances in Placerville that could be our kind of deal."

"Yes, sir," Dean replied. "I'll let you know what I find." He flipped his phone shut and slid into the driver's seat. With any luck, he could leave Truckee and this creeping feeling behind within an hour.

The haunted house turned out to be nothing but a local legend -- there had been a gory murder-suicide there a hundred years ago, but the house was clean of EMF and no one would admit to actually seeing anything strange recently. Dean was on the road again within a day, heading for Placerville.

He drove down long, flat stretches of highway, past endless acres of fields. Over the low green crops a fine mist rose up and formed a layer of man-made fog, formed by the water shooting out of sprinklers into rounded arches. As the fields flew by, he saw very few homes except for the occasional shack, abandoned to the elements and near collapse. There were lots of farm workers, though, their backs bent low over the rows of growing things, brown skin and faded cotton shirts all that was visible from the road. Their run-down cars were parked along the edge of the highway at intervals, pulled halfway into the irrigation ditches, noses tilted down like animals drinking water from a trough. Once Dean saw a '73 Impala parked on the roadside, patches of old blue paint and dull gray primer vying for dominance. Part of him wanted to stop and take a look, but he kept on driving.

The radio dial as he approached Placerville was full of mariachi music and the farm report, so Dean dipped into his stash of tapes and slipped one in the deck without looking. The low, rough opening notes of "Wherever I May Roam" sounded out of the speakers and Dean let his shoulders relax a little. The engine rumbled along as Hetfield's voice filled the car, singing about duty and freedom and the road.

"What do you think, Baby?" Dean asked the Impala as he drove, still thinking back to Truckee. "What happened there? Did I miss something?" He thought of that girl in the leather pants, the way she moved against him like a snake, all coiled muscle and energy. The look in her eyes when she said she had things to take care of: could she be the one who had killed those kids? What kind of spirit or monster was he dealing with here? But the car had no answer for him, no theories or legends to offer. Dean was on his own.

Placerville was farms and bars and schools and fields all around, low buildings faded in the sun and trees bent into the wind. Dean swung into town late, just as the dusty sunset was turning from purple into night, and checked into a motel. The place was just a long, low building, a bunch of rooms stuck in a row. It was his favorite kind of place, where he could park right outside and nobody asked a lot of questions.

It was too late to get anything done, so he took a quick shower and headed out again. He found a bar without too much trouble, a dimly-lit honky-tonk in the center of town. The tables were coated with grime and the music spilling out of the jukebox was tinny and twangy, but they had cold beer and neon light and that was enough for Dean. Bottle in hand, he turned around, watching the place fill up as he drank.

People entered in pairs, in groups of three and four, laughing and smiling with each other. Coworkers, couples, family, friends. Every once in a while, a person would enter alone, either joining up with the groups or heading straight for the bar, grim-faced and determined. Dean just stood back, sipped his beer and tried not to compare himself to them.

Over the sound of conversation and steel guitar, Dean could hear the distinctive click-clack of pool balls from the corner. It was a soothing, familiar sound, and he grinned to himself, thinking of the feel of a cue in his hand and piles of soft bills to be made. He walked through the crowded room, winding deliberately past the talking, laughing people, around tables and behind chairs.

In the corner there were three tables covered in worn green felt, lit by low-hanging lamps that advertised brands of beer so old Dean had never tasted them. The middle table was empty, one forlorn cue lying across the felt. Gathered around the two end tables were a few scattered groups of people. Locals, by the look of them: mostly rich kids with freshly-polished boots and big oval belt buckles.

In the middle of the group, leaning one hip against the table, he saw someone familiar: the brunette he'd been with in Truckee, the girl he'd been thinking of as Miss Leather Pants.

When he spotted her, Dean sucked in a breath in surprise and took stepped back until his shoulders pressed against the wall. She was in jeans this time, but it didn't help her blend into the crowd. She stood out just as clearly now, darkly powerful as she moved and alert when still, in stark contrast to the clueless kids around her, just laughing and singing along to the jukebox, unaware of the predator in their midst.

She was every bit as hot as she'd been before -- maybe hotter, because now Dean knew what a mind-blowing experience it'd be to fuck her -- and just like before, he was captivated, enchanted. This time, though, he reminded himself of those kids back in Truckee who'd been torn to shreds, and he kept his distance.

When the waitress came around, in tight jeans and a t-shirt that said "Got Beer?" the kids ordered more drinks, but the brunette shook her head no. Dean could've used another beer to take the edge off, but it was a luxury he couldn't afford. With no one to depend on but himself, he needed that hunter's edge. But when the waitress's rounds brought her to Dean, he smiled a slow, lazy smile at her anyway. Her cheeks turned a little pink, and Dean grinned inwardly. Her skin was like the leather of an old baseball glove, and she was probably old enough to be his mother, but working in a place like this she probably knew a lot about the town.

It paid off, because she slowed her steps and leaned against the wall next to him. "You new in town?" she asked.

"Looking for work," he said, which was no lie. And unless he missed his guess, he'd found it.

"Knew I hadn't seen you before," she said, with a look that plainly finished the thought, _because I sure would've remembered you._

"Heard you had some strange things goin' on around here, though."

"Yeah," she said, with a little shudder that was at least half overplayed. "Kids disappearing in broad daylight and all. Hard to believe it. This ain't the city, you know." Dean wondered if 'the city' meant Davis or Sacramento or San Francisco, but he didn't ask.

"You know where it happened?" Dean asked. While they were talking, he kept one eye watching the brown-haired girl in the corner.

"Grabbed 'em right in the middle of town," she said with a sigh, shaking her head. "Like they was never there."

"World's gone crazy," Dean agreed noncommittally. His beer was warm in his hand, but he took a sip anyway, glancing at her over the rim of the bottle. "You hear about anything strange in town?" he asked, pushing his luck.

She looked at him a little strangely and shifted her tray so that it was between them, but she answered his question. "Place out on Tank Farm," she said. "The old man's owned that place forever, but now there's strange noises out there, people comin' and goin' all the time, so my sister-in-law says. I'd stay away from that place if I were new in town."

"Thanks," Dean said. "I'll make sure to do that."

"Can I get you another one of those?" she asked, looking out at the bar full of drinking customers, then regretfully back at him.

"No thanks, I'm good," Dean said. She didn't have anything else to tell him.

He turned away from the waitress' retreating form and back towards the pool table. Just a few feet away, Miss Leather Pants was standing, a pool cue balanced lightly in one hand. She glanced up and met his stare with one of her own, measuring and qualifying him. Her deep brown eyes were nearly black in the dim light. He'd seen that face in the midst of passion and filled with sexy satisfaction, but all that was gone now, replaced with a cold hardness that was all too familiar.

The look lasted only a moment, and then it was gone as some drunk kid walked between them. She made no move toward Dean, did not try to say anything. He looked away first, sickened by the twin mental images of hot, sweaty bodies and torn, mangled flesh. He wondered, had she heard anything? What did she know? And more importantly, who the hell was she?

He'd seen her in Truckee, where kids disappeared and turned up in pieces, and now in Placerville, where kids disappeared and never turned up. There were only two things that connected both places, and those kids weren't running away on their own. It had to be her. The odds of anything else ran too narrow to believe.

A chill ran down Dean's spine, and he began to seriously consider, for the first time, what kind of mojo could turn a girl like this into a cold-blooded monster.

The next day, he woke late to an empty room. It looked like every other cheap motel room in the country, dirty beige walls and watercolor flowers, the only thing different about it the flat, sunbleached town outside the window. He turned on the TV and flipped channels until he found some local news show, wanting to fill up the silence of the room. The anchors made small talk and joked about the weather, and their voices echoed off the blank walls. Dean showered quickly, threw on some jeans and an old t-shirt, and left.

The Impala was waiting for him in the parking lot, and he could feel something relax inside him at the sight. "Hey Girl," he said as he slid behind the wheel, touching the dashboard with the fingertips of one hand. "Let's check this chick out, huh?" The car didn't answer, but the engine rumbled to life under him and that was good enough.

The night before, Dean had waited for Miss Leather Pants in the parking lot for two hours, but she'd never appeared. She must've left another way -- by a back emergency exit, maybe. She probably walked home from the bar if she didn't pass through the parking lot, so she would be staying nearby somewhere. Dean knew that wasn't necessarily great logic, but it was worth a shot, at least.

If this girl was the killer -- still a big if as far as Dean was concerned -- then he'd had her literally in his hands and let her go. He had to stop her this time.

The honky-tonk was located in the middle of a tiny downtown strip, which was populated with a couple other bars and restaurants, a liquor store, a nail salon and a few empty businesses. Only a few motels were located close by. Across the street from the bar and a couple doors down sat a little diner, which would make a good vantage point. Besides, he was hungry.

Dean slid into a booth next to the front window and looked out through the dusty window. Past the Impala, parked at the curb, he could see the entire street. Everything looked pretty much the same in the midday light as it had the night before, except the bar was closed. Still, if that girl showed her face anywhere on the street, Dean would see her.

The menu said "breakfast served 24 hours," and Dean smiled, knowing he'd hit on just the right kind of place. He ordered a Coke and a double cheeseburger from the waitress, and sat back to observe.

He heard her before he saw her, and by then he'd been sitting there for a while. The burger was gone along with three soda refills. A copy of the local paper sat discarded on the table. A lunch crowd had come and gone, the place never filling up enough so that Dean felt guilty for taking up a table. He just sat looking out the window and trying not to look too suspicious, which he figured was a failing proposition.

It didn't matter, though; he couldn't have missed her, riding down the street on a motorcycle so loud its engine shook the diner's plate-glass window as she passed. She was all black leather and shining chrome, denim and cleavage, like something out of an auto-parts calendar. Not subtle, but then Dean had never been the type to blend in either and there was a lot to appreciate about a chick that hot, straddling a machine that fine.

Dean spent a moment appreciating her and saving the thought for later, and then scribbled down her license plate number on a corner of the newspaper. She was definitely hot, but this was no longer a pleasurable break from the action -- she was part of the job now, and Dean had to take care of business. Leaving a hefty tip for the waitress, he walked out of the diner and over to his car.

His original plan had been to go back to the motel, call Bobby, and have him look up the bike's registration to get this chick's name and info, then run a background check on her. But as he was unlocking the Impala, he saw that she had parked her bike and was walking into the diner.

Dean swore under his breath. No way he could go back in there now without being noticed, but if he'd just waited to leave for a few more minutes... Well, there was no use worrying about it now.

He got into the car and drove slowly around the block, then returned to the diner. The motorcycle was still parked outside, so Dean stopped the car a few stores down and settled in to wait, again.

This time, he didn't have to wait too long.

Leather Pants Girl came out of the diner after a few minutes. She was wearing jeans again. Dean was really gonna have to figure out a better name for her. She climbed on her bike and pulled away from the curb, and he followed behind at a distance.

The Impala wasn't the most discreet car in the world, and it wasn't that great for tailing people because of it, but Dean had no problems this time. Girl rode up to another shady-looking motel, very like the one where Dean was staying, and parked right in front of one of the ground-floor rooms that faced out to the cracked asphalt of the parking lot.

On the other side of the motel's grimy swimming pool, Dean stopped the car and sat and waited again. There was a simple chain-link fence between him and the motel, but it didn't provide much cover; he could watch the chick's room easily enough, but if she happened to look out she'd see him clear as day.

He was getting tired of waiting all the time, for this chick to go and do something really evil so he could take her out, for more kids to disappear, for his dad to call with instructions. He rested one arm on the top of the empty passenger seat and drummed out the rhythm to "Nothing Else Matters" on the vinyl. Sometimes it felt like he spent all of his time in this car. Well, if it came to that there were worse places to be, and worse things to be doing than waiting all the time. Dean could handle it. That didn't keep him from getting bored sometimes.

In about fifteen minutes, the girl reappeared in a pair of sweatpants and an old Ramones shirt, her dark brown hair in a ponytail. She locked the door of the motel room and tucked the key in her sock, then set off at a jog down the street. A plastic _'do not disturb'_ sign hung from the knob, and Dean smiled to himself. In his extensive experience of motel-based evil, a person who was up to something generally didn't want the maid coming in to clean up.

Dean waited about a minute after she was gone, then grabbed his picks and went over to the room she'd left. He stepped inside, knowing he had only a few minutes to look the place over.

At first glance, the room looked neat and clean -- a duffel bag on the floor had some jeans and a familiar-looking bra in it, and there were a couple pairs of shoes lined up next to the bed, but that was it. The bathroom held a box of tampons and some makeup, little bottles of shampoo and a hairbrush. Actually, there was a lot less stuff there than most girls would have, nothing compared to Cassie's endless lineup of goop and powder and ointment, which had been a total mystery to Dean. There was nothing else unusual in the room. No black altars, no sacrificed chickens or photos of victims. The nightstand and dresser drawers held only a standard-issue Bible, a Tom Clancy book and a couple of old newspapers. Nothing special.

Dean was starting to get frustrated when he walked over to the room's small closet and slid the door open. Inside, there were some fragile-looking hangers, a stained ironing board and --jackpot-- an enormous sword and a couple of hunting knives in scabbards. The sword's blade was bare and polished to a high shine, and Dean could see a tiny reflection of his own face in it. Balled up on the floor was a small pile of clothes marked with the unmistakable color of dried blood.

Yeah, there was definitely something going on with this chick. Something bad.

He picked up the sword by the hilt -- wrapped in leather for a good grip -- and examined the blade. The cross-guard that extended from the base of the handle was notched and scarred with use, but the blade itself was sharp and well-cared for. He leaned the sword back in place and slid the closet door shut again, leaving it open a couple of inches the way it had been when he came in. Quickly, he returned to the nightstand and flipped through the newspapers there.

At first when he'd seen the papers, he'd assumed they were just nighttime reading material, but the bloody clothes and huge sword suggested that this girl was mixed up in something bad, and Dean had to check every angle to find out if it was just regular old badness or connected in some way to the missing kids he was investigating.

Working fast so he could be gone before she came back, Dean flipped through the pages of the newspapers. They were local papers, all copies of the _Placerville Mountain Democrat_, one from a week before and one that was nearly a month old. And sure enough, inside each section there was a story on a missing kid, circled in red. It was a pretty good indication that this girl was involved in the disappearances, and Dean felt weirdly disappointed, despite the fact that he'd already suspected that exact scenario. Making a note of the dates on the papers, he folded them up and put them back where they'd been, then left the room.

He slid behind the wheel of the Impala feeling grim. For the first time in weeks, he finally had a solid lead in these disappearances, and he knew for sure that this girl was involved in some way. There was no denying, no questioning it. There'd been a flicker of doubt in his thoughts ever since the killings stopped in Truckee and she disappeared, but now it was gone and his mind was clear and certain.

The bloodied clothes and the sharp, naked blade of the sword weighed on his mind, though. Before, he'd had some hope for the missing kids. Now it seemed like their chances were slim. They'd probably end up in tiny pieces all over a school playground or parking lot.

He rummaged around in his box of tapes and slid Judas Priest in the player, flooding his mind with drums and guitar to keep from thinking up new scenarios. He'd find out what happened when he caught this girl, but until then there was no need to imagine it.

He drove to the town's library in the yellow light of late afternoon, and went in to look up the newspaper articles he'd seen in her room. It only took him a few minutes with the wrinkled pages of the old papers to realize that those articles didn't have much new information in them -- just the basics on _who_ and _when_ and _where_, though they were probably missing a lot of the _what_ and most of the _why_. He payed his ten cents a page and left with copies and a couple of maps, feeling edgy and aimless. Standing next to the car, he called Bobby, but there was no answer and all Dean could do was to listen to a recorded voice and leave a message with the girl's license plate number. Hopefully, Bobby would pass through home sometime soon and be able to help, but there were no guarantees. In hunting, there never were.

Flipping his phone shut, Dean tried to think of someone else to call, something to do. If Dad was here, he'd tell Dean to wash his car or clean his guns or something safe and sensible. Not that John Winchester ever did anything safe. But if he was here, Dean would have backup and he wouldn't need to play it safe.

He was standing under a tree next to a municipal building in Placerville, California, with an itch in his spine and no way to scratch it. He'd slept until noon, the day was nearly over, and all he'd done all day was a little breaking and entering. Sure, he had a solid lead for the first time in nearly a month, but he hadn't actually gotten a chance to _do_ anything, to hit someone or shoot something or light a fire under anything. It was just enough to leave him feeling antsy and unsatisfied, like he had to go out and do something right away or lose his mind.

There was one thing he could check out. On the maps in his hand, there was a thick black line identified as "Tank Farm Road." Hell if he knew what that meant, but it was the only other lead he had. He had no plan, no backup, and no clear idea of what he was hunting besides a little girl with a big sword. But fuck it. He was a hunter; he'd hunt.

The sun was sinking down over the horizon, and soon it would be dark enough to check out the site of the disappearances without attracting too much attention. Dean pointed the Impala toward the outskirts of town, past the shops and houses and schools, into the farms and light industrial areas, and into the rolling empty country beyond.

It wasn't just the town that looked like it'd been baked in the sun; the outlying areas were covered with low hills, the grass an even golden-brown. The once-white barns and farmhouses along the road had probably been built before he was born, and here and there were even older buildings that looked like they were one strong breeze away from returning to the earth.

He turned left onto Tank Farm, and right away saw the reason for the name. Instead of bored-looking cows or neat rows of crops, the land out here was dotted with large metallic cylinders, some of them about the same size as those old houses he'd passed. The low, dusky light gleamed dully off their surfaces, and around them the faded grasses waved slightly in the breeze. The tanks just sat there as though they'd grown out of the ground like some kind of futuristic mushrooms. They reminded him of the grain silos that dotted the Midwest, only these were shorter and wider, with a sleeker metal finish. Dean slowed the car and rested one arm outside the window, watching as they passed by.

About three-quarters of a mile down the road, there was a break in the fence for a narrow metal gate. Even from the car, Dean could see that it was secured only by a chain and padlock. He grabbed his picks from the glove compartment, and left the motor running as he got out. Within a minute, he was pulling the car through and locking the gate behind him to cover his tracks.

The only buildings on the lot were more of the round metal tanks, with no odd corners to provide cover. He pulled around back of the closest one and parked behind it, trying to shield his car from view of the road at least.

Dean slipped his picks back in the glove compartment and tucked his Glock in the waistband of his jeans before he climbed out of the car. The weight of the gun was solid and comfortable against his back, the metal cool on his skin at first although he knew it would warm quickly. He stood in place and turned, looking at the rolling hills all around, dotted with oak trees in the distance, the road stretching off toward the horizon like a river, and the big silver cylinders all around him, identical except for their size. Everything he could see was still except for him and the blades of yellow grass that danced in the evening wind.

Nothing for it but to start where he was, then. He palmed his homemade EMF detector and set off, walking a circle around the closest tank, looking for anything unusual and finding nothing. The needle on the detector wobbled only a little as Dean crisscrossed the lot, rising sluggishly near power lines and then dropping again as he got some distance. It was all just as normal as apple pie, but Dean's skin crawled with a feeling he couldn't ignore. There was something going on at this place, but he just couldn't identify it yet.

There were at least two dozen of the things on the lot, scattered near and far, up to a half-mile away in either direction. The last of the sunlight was nearly lost and the air was cooling quickly, the sky darkening fast now that the sun was gone. Dean moved methodically from one tank to the next, checking each one carefully and keeping an eye on the road. After the sixth one with nothing out of the ordinary, he stopped, rearranging his shirt to make sure it covered the gun. He'd walked nearly a half-mile from the Impala, and his chances of being able to make a quick getaway were dwindling the farther he walked.

When he'd first started hunting with his father, he'd hated this part. Research and recon was too boring, too time-consuming for him. He wanted to go out there and shoot something, burn something or hit it where it hurt. But he learned pretty fast that when you were shooting at something, it was usually because that thing was bearing down fast and about to put its icy fingers around your neck. And with each hunt, he'd learned to appreciate the slow and steady approach more and more, the skulking around, the watching and talking and grave-digging part of what they did. He still hated spending all day in a library, but he usually had no choice. When Sam had been around that was his job, but he was gone now and it fell to Dean, with a lot of other things.

The last tank on the lot was a little smaller than the others, about the size of a double-wide trailer, and set farther away. Dean was sick and tired of looking at the things, but he went over there anyway. As he walked, he noticed something, just barely visible in the low light: the tall yellow grass that grew all over the lot was worn down near this tank. It was just a narrow path, a few trampled and bent stalks that were visible from only certain angles, but it was enough to tell Dean that someone had been here recently; here, to this tank, but not the others. In his hand, the needle of the EMF detector began to rise, and Dean felt his pulse quicken with it. There was definitely something here, something more than just old wires without insulation.

He followed the path before him, walking right up to the edge of the tank. The path didn't turn back or detour around the rounded surface, but seemed to pass right through the metal edge, so Dean looked for a door. Sure enough, at the place where one shiny silver panel met the next one, there was a tiny gap, just a half-inch or so, and some smudges on the metal that looked like fingerprints.

Dean wedged his fingertips into the gap and with difficulty, pried the heavy panel open about two feet. Inside, the space was pitch-black. The fading twilit sky did little to illuminate the area, and if anyone was inside, they would be able to see him perfectly, framed against the sunset like John Wayne. Which was cool, but getting through this hunt without getting shot or stabbed with a sword would be better. He drew his gun and stepped inside, looking around to try to get his bearings.

From the corner of his eye he sensed movement, and brought one arm up to block instinctively. In the dim light he could see a short, stocky man, his face darkened with a couple days of stubble. Dean's fist connected with a solid, fleshy arm swinging for his head, and the impact spread a shock of pain up into his shoulder. Dean struck back at his assailant, his mind calculating the probable location of head, chest, and vulnerable underbelly based on known factors like location of fists and sound of breathing. The other man countered, and they struggled blindly for a few minutes. In the dark space, Dean could see little of the man he was fighting, but he'd been in this position before and managed to hold his own, landing kicks and punches as he could. The other man was smaller and stockier than Dean, and he fought silently and with concentration, but Dean soon began to get the best of him. One hand was still occupied with his gun, and he managed to use that to his advantage, swinging out and hitting the man across the cheekbone with the side of the barrel. The impact was loud in the silent space, and the other man staggered backward for a moment.

In that moment, he heard running feet and a rumble of what might have been thunder. Great, reinforcements. His eyes were growing used to the low light inside the tank now, and he saw the man he'd been fighting push himself to his feet and rush forward to attack again. Dean quickly shoved his gun into his back pocket, and when the man lunged Dean stepped out of his path like a matador with an angry bull. As the man rushed past him, Dean grabbed both his shoulders and shoved him, so that he tripped and went sprawling face-down in the dirt of the tank's hard-packed floor.

He'd heard running footsteps, though, and so he knew this wasn't over. It was a break in the action, that's all. Dean stepped farther back into shadow, and looked around the inside of the metal tank to see if there was anything he could use to his advantage. He'd expected the place to be like the grain silos that it resembled; Dean hadn't been much of a farm kid, but he'd seen silos before and this wasn't like anything he'd seen growing up in Kansas. The floor was bare and flat, and under his boots it felt like hard-packed dirt. On one side of the round room was a low platform, somewhat like a stage, and in the center of it was a chair where a small figure sat slumped over.

Dean didn't have time to give much thought to the layout of the place, though, other than to glance around and try to remember as much as he could. The running footsteps he'd heard earlier had almost reached his position. He pressed his back to the wall beside the partly-open door and let them come.

Three men approached the tank at a run, all dressed in laborer's clothes of jeans and flannel shirts with ancient, worn-in cowboy boots. Like the man who had attacked Dean inside the tank, they were all somewhat shorter than Dean but muscular and powerfully built. As the three drew nearer, the man on the ground struggled to his feet and stood, blood running down the left side of his face from welts that still bore the marks of Dean's pistol-whipping. He bared his teeth in a grimace and began moving forward with the others. They were almost on him when Dean heard the rumbling sound he'd mistaken for thunder earlier.

Through the open door of the tank he could see a low, dark shape curving around through the gate and past the tanks in the distance, followed by a cloud of dust that rose from the dirt in its wake. The rumble grew louder as the men drew closer to Dean, and he knew he could not waste time staring at something other than the four guys about to jump him, but he could not pull his eyes away. As the dust cloud grew closer, he could make out the shape at its front more clearly -- chrome and steel, rubber and leather. A motorcycle, and in the driver's seat was the brown-haired girl.

Oh yeah, he was in trouble now.


	2. Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Five to one was pretty terrible odds in a fight, even for him, Dean thought to himself. He'd had a lot more experience with hand-to-hand fighting than most guys, and could easily hold his own in a barroom brawl or a fistfight with a girl's jealous boyfriend. But that didn't mean anything now, with four men advancing on him and one wild card outside.

Four men advanced on him as a unit, moving forward in silent, threatening unison. Dean held his position, fists up and ready. Them, he could deal with. But in the near distance he could hear the roar of a motorcycle engine, closing fast: it was the brown-haired girl he had met in Truckee, whose name he still didn't know. If she had killed those kids, she could be capable of anything. That girl was definitely the wild card in this fight, the one who would change it from a brawl he could win into a trap he couldn't escape.

He still had his gun, but everything about this job was so uncertain he hardly knew who he should be shooting. Besides, Dean really didn't like killing people. It was a last resort when there was no other way out. He'd do what he had to do to survive, of course, but then he'd have to hide the bodies, think up an alibi... It always seemed to create more problems than it actually solved.

Dean jumped into the fight, trying to turn the odds in his favor by using the four men against each other. In a perfect situation, they would all get in the way and knock each other over like the Three Stooges. In actuality, three of them circled just out of his reach while one engaged him, allowing them to stay fresh while he tired himself out against the first opponent. Dean and his opponent traded blows, the man as tough and skilled as his counterpart who had jumped Dean when he first entered the tank. Dean held his own, getting in some good shots, but he took as good as he gave and he couldn't keep it up forever.

He didn't have to: a minute later, the rough engine of the motorcycle howled to a halt right outside. It was a good thing that she couldn't ride the thing through the door and just mow him down with the sword like some kind of drive-by beheading, Dean thought. At least he shouldn't have any problem with her hand-to-hand when they were on even ground.

The thick, heavy metallic door flew all the way open with a bang, loud enough to leave a ringing in Dean's ears. A curvy female silhouette, with rounded hips and flowing hair, was framed against the darkening sky. Dean remembered straining to pull that door open a few inches and tried to picture the strength it would take to throw it open like that, but failed. The guys he was fighting stopped what they were doing and looked up. Away from the fight. Not too smart.

Dean looked too, of course. Whenever he was around this girl, his eyes were drawn to her. She was all power and energy, sex and violence and rock'n'roll, and Dean had seen enough already to know that she could back all of that up and more. It was the _more_ he was worried about, whatever kind of bad mojo she might've been working on those dead kids in Truckee. He didn't know what she was doing here, or what would happen when she jumped into the fight against him.

There were a thousand questions and puzzles and inconsistencies swirling through Dean's brain, but he pushed them aside. There was a time and place for thinking, and this was not it. What Dean had to do right now was stay alive, and as far as he was concerned there were only three things that would keep him that way: his fists, his knife and his gun.

To even the odds, he tore his eyes away from the girl and hit the closest henchman with a swift uppercut to the jaw, while the man was still distracted. The man cried out as he fell backwards, and five pairs of eyes turned swiftly to Dean. He widened his stance and readied his weapons, preparing for attack.

Three of the men were still on their feet, and the other was picking himself off the ground with anger in his eyes. Without discussion one of them turned toward Dean and swung at his head, and the fight was back on.

Dean ducked and blocked the man's blows, throwing his own punches as he could. Meanwhile, the girl was behind him, and so were the other henchmen. Dean hated having his back exposed like this, knowing that he was a walking target a mile wide, and any one of the other five people in the room could jump into the fight at any moment and change everything. As he fought off his opponent, he tried to turn his shoulders and hips with each movement, so that in a few moves he would have reversed their positions.

Before he could finish the rotation, though, something changed. Behind him, he heard the sound of a dull _thud_. A moment later, his opponent glanced away from the fight, over Dean's shoulder, and his eyes grew wide with shock. It was the oldest trick in the book, and Dean refused to be distracted by such a tired ploy. Instead, he moved swiftly, taking advantage of the momentary distraction and hitting the man with a sharp right hook, sending him sprawling in the dirt.

The guy went down hard, landing on his side on the packed-dirt floor, and didn't move. Dean didn't wait to see if he would get up again, but spun around on the defensive, ready for the next attack.

It never came.

When he turned, he saw something he never expected. The brown-haired girl was fighting all three of the remaining men and making it look easy. Most girls Dean had met would have a pretty hard time fighting off one man, but this chick was taking on three and kicking their asses.

He stood and watched, amazed, as she spun through the air to land a kick so hard it threw a fully-grown man off his feet, then seemed to reverse in mid-jump to attack another with her fists, raining blows on him with power and precision. Her skill was undeniable, but what was really amazing was her speed. She moved so fast, like a cheetah overtaking its prey, that her opponents hardly stood a chance. Within a minute, they were all unconscious on the floor at her feet.

It seemed nearly unbelievable, but then Dean had seen many stranger things in his life. Her superhuman fighting skills were just another question to add to the rapidly-growing list in his head, and Dean pushed it aside to deal with later.

He still had to survive this chick, and based on that performance it was clear that his odds were not good against her, even one-on-one. She must be working some kind of hoodoo to be able to do fight like that, and he had not come prepared for magic today. That stuff made Dean uncomfortable at the best of times.

_Don't die_, he told himself, wondering if salt rounds would have any affect on her.

But inexplicably, there was no attack.

The girl looked him over briefly and then nodded. "Hey," she said casually, as if they were old friends, not locked in some life or death struggle of good versus evil. "Nice work."

Dean blinked.

"Get the kid, would you?" she asked, nodding toward the small figure tied up in the shadows at the edge of the room, who Dean had nearly forgotten about.

Mutilated bodies seemed to appear everywhere this girl went, and so the first thought in Dean's mind was to wonder just what she wanted him to get the kid _for_.

He'd fought those four guys out of self-defense, but right now things were so turned around that he couldn't make heads or tales of the situation. If this girl was his enemy, were those guys his friends? Why was she acting like they were on the same side?

Still, he couldn't think of any reason why untying the hostage would be a bad thing, and those possible friends were passed out cold, so he crossed the dirt floor toward the still, quiet body.

On the far side of the tank, the light was even lower, but Dean could just make out a small figure bound to a rickety folding chair. The kid -- Dean thought it was a boy, but he couldn't be sure -- didn't move as he approached. He stooped down and ran his hands over the bounds, learning by feel what his eyes could not see. His fingers touched something both smooth and ridged, sticky at the edges, wrapped tightly around the kid's wrists. Duct tape.

Dean pulled the hunting knife from his boot and went to work on the tape, sawing through the layers carefully. He tried to keep the blade edge away from the kid's skin, but it was dark and he must've missed, because the kid suddenly began to struggle and yell.

"Hey, hey kid," Dean said, startled. "I'm here to help. I'm just cutting the tape. We're gonna get you out of here, okay?"

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" the kid asked. "How do I know you're not with them?"

"Those guys passed out on the floor?" Dean asked. Okay, if those guys were the kidnappers they were definitely not potential allies, no matter who they were fighting against. All these layers of alliance and enmity were making Dean's head hurt, so he concentrated on what was really important -- getting the kid out of there.

The kid didn't answer, but he stopped struggling. Dean finished with the tape on his wrists and moved to his ankles, each of which was separately taped to a chair leg.

When he was almost done, he looked up at the kid's face. In the low light he could just see the side of his cheek, marked with dark patches that might've been blood and bruises. "Can you walk, kid?" he asked.

"You just cut through that tape and I'll take it from there," the kid said grimly, and Dean figured he would be all right.

He helped the kid stand and they headed toward the door, walking past the prone bodies of the four attackers, who were now bound hand and foot with plastic ties. She hadn't killed them, Dean noted. She'd had unconscious prisoners and she'd gone for tying them up instead of shooting them in the head. It was probably a good sign.

"Those the guys that kidnapped you?" Dean asked the kid, looking down at the top of his dark head.

"Um," said the kid. "Kinda. They're like--" He stopped, as if searching for the right word.

Dean waited, biting his tongue. The last thing he wanted to do was jump in with some suggestion of evil spirits and scare the kid even more.

"Helpers," the kid finally finished.

"Helpers?" Dean repeated.

"They grabbed me, and then they brought me here to their boss."

Dean wanted to ask him about the boss, but then they were at the opening of the tank, and outside it was night. The sky was dark, and the moon had risen above the hills, shining huge and bright in the absence of city lights to distract. A few stars had already come out, and by their light Dean could see the girl leaning against her bike a few feet away. All the questions he'd pushed to the back of his mind came rushing back in that moment, and he was more confused than ever.

"You all right, kid?" she asked.

The kid raised his chin defiantly. "Better than those guys back there."

Dean smiled, and he saw her smile, too. "Who _are_ you guys?" the kid asked, crossing his arms over his chest as if to say that he was unimpressed by the rescue.

"I'm Faith," the girl said. She tilted her head and looked at Dean with one eyebrow raised. He'd been tracking this girl for weeks, had already gotten up close and personal with her and gone through the things in her hotel room. It was probably time for a proper introduction.

"Dean Winchester," he said. He'd checked into the motel under the name Angus Young, and he'd been known to give girls fake names before, but something about this girl, this situation, seemed to call for a different answer.

"What's your name?" she -- Faith -- asked the kid.

"Joey," the kid answered. In the low light, he looked vaguely Hispanic, with dark hair and sun-browned skin. He was wearing jeans and a Sacramento Kings t-shirt. Purple bruises dotted his arms, and his bottom lip was split and bleeding. There were scraps of duct tape clinging to his wrists and ankles.

"Okay, Joey, put this on." She handed him a motorcycle helmet, and when the kid put it on it covered his entire head and neck and rested on his shoulders, so that he looked like some kind of alien with a really huge, shiny head.

Faith threw one leg over the motorcycle and helped the kid scramble up in front of her.

"Hop on, Handsome," she said to Dean, patting the seat of the bike behind her. "You're the bitch."

"Nah," Dean replied. "I got my car." He pointed off in the direction of the spot he'd left the Impala, nearly a mile away through a dark landscape of dry grass and metal tanks. The truth was, he would've liked to get that machine between his legs and ride off into the sunset, but he still had all those questions in his mind about Faith. He'd trusted her enough to give her his real name, but he still wasn't willing to put his life in her hands.

"All right," she said slowly. "How 'bout if I give you a ride over there?"

"Sure," said Dean, figuring that the devil he knew in this case was better than the henchmen that might be lurking elsewhere on the lot. Besides, the kid was already on the bike and there was no real good way to explain _hey, now that you're rescued you might want to stay away from this lady in the leather pants because she could be evil, too_.

Dean climbed on the back and reached down behind him to hold on to the sides of the seat. Riding on the back of a chick's bike was bad enough, but he'd be damned if he'd hold on to her for support.

Faith kick-started the motorcycle, and the engine roared to life underneath them. Clumps of soil and grass flew into the air as she drove through the field, curving around the tanks on a path toward the front gate, deep tire ruts cutting into the ground as they went. It was completely obvious that she'd been there; she'd made no effort to hide her tracks. If she was a guy, Dean would've said she had balls.

"Sorry, only got one helmet," Faith shouted to Dean as they rode. The wind whipped her hair and drove it into his face, and he had to keep his eyes squinted. Underneath their bodies, the motor hummed and vibrated, and Faith's muscles flexed between his legs. He didn't have much time to enjoy it, though, because soon enough they were pulling up to the Impala.

Dean climbed off the bike and leaned back against the solid steel of the Impala. "Thanks for the lift," he said. "If you want, I can take the kid from here. Don't need a helmet." Letting a girl with a big bloody sword take the hostage away was not a safe bet in this situation, as far as Dean was concerned.

Faith looked at him for a moment, her own suspicions evident in her expression. She must've seen something in Dean's face, though, because she seemed to reach some sort of conclusion and nodded. "All right," she said finally. "I just gotta ask the kid a few questions first."

This should be interesting. Dean crossed his arms and leaned back to watch. He could afford to be patient now, if she was going to let him take the kid away to safety.

"Questions?" the kid asked, seeming nervous for the first time.

"Look, I gotta catch these guys, stop what they're doing. And you're gonna help me."

"I... am?"

"Just a couple questions, okay?"

He lifted his chin like he was trying to look tough, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Okay, I guess."

Dean had to hand it to her. As he listened, she drew the kid out and got answers from him. She didn't ask a lot of questions, or talk much, and she sure didn't seem like the motherly type, but somehow she got the kid talking.

He'd been riding his bike home from school one day, he said, and he'd taken a shortcut through a back alley. He didn't know the name of the street, but it was next to the store with the sign that said "_Carniceria y Jamoneria_." Faith nodded like she knew where that was, so Dean didn't bother to butt in and ask. It was her show right now, anyway. In the alley, Joey said, he'd been jumped by a bunch of guys and thrown in a van. They put a piece of cloth over his face and when he woke up, he was in the metal tank. Faith asked some more questions about the guys who grabbed him, what they looked like and how they treated him, stuff like that, but to Dean none of it seemed to stick out. Joey didn't seem to know anything about what their plans were or why he was being held.

Dean wasn't sure, but from what the kid said this just didn't seem to fit the pattern of the other jobs he'd been on since he and his dad split up in Indiana. Normal, human guys abducting kids in a van? Sounded more like a bunch of sickos stealing kids and selling them on the black market or something. Which sucked, sure, but if that was the situation then Dean would do what he always did -- call in an anonymous tip on his way out of town. Cops had to be good for something.

Then, Faith asked the question that Dean himself had asked a hundred times, in a hundred different ways. It was bizarre to hear it coming from someone else, to know that she was out there with her eyes open, that she was aware of the same things he hunted in the dark. It was just another question to file away in the back of his mind, to be considered together with everything else.

"You see anything weird, kid?" It was phrased almost as an afterthought, her body relaxed as though this was nothing but a totally normal thing to ask, but Dean knew better. This was the whole point of the questioning, the one thing she really needed to know.

"Weird?" the kid answered. Dean settled back more comfortably against the car, now even more interested in how the kid would respond to her questioning.

"Y'know, just something strange," she said, keeping her tone light but locking her eyes on the kid's in a way that was totally not casual. "It's the little details that give these guys away, kid, and if you want to help bring them down you gotta tell me everything, even if it seems like it's not important."

"Well, um," the kid said, biting his lip. He knew something. "They kept saying 'she.'"

"She?"

"'She will be angry,' 'She is hungry,' things like that."

"Okay, okay," Faith nodded like she knew what he was talking about. "That's good. Anything else?"

"No, nothing. That's it."

"Okay, kid. Thanks a lot. That really helps." She reached out and ruffled his hair with one hand, and the kid's face turned bright red and he squirmed away like he was embarrassed, but Dean thought he looked secretly pleased.

Then it was Dean's turn. "What about you, Handsome?" she asked, turning her full attention to him like a spotlight on a fugitive. "You see anything?"

He thought about saying, _sure, I saw a chick kick three guys' asses without even working up a sweat, that's pretty damn strange_. He thought about the EMF readings he'd gotten and the way they fluctuated around that place, but he decided to keep it to himself for now.

"Nah," he said. "Just the usual." Usual for a Winchester was a little bit different from the rest of the world's, so that didn't mean much.

She gave him that same look again, the one that showed that she wasn't completely buying it, but she let it slide.

"All right, kid," she said, her attention sliding away from Dean again. "He's gonna get you home, all right?" _Home safe_ remained unsaid. Earlier, Dean would've said he was keeping the kid safe from the likes of her, but now that she handed him over willingly, he didn't know what to think.

"Sure," Joey answered, his chin up in the air, bravado fully in place. "I'm a'ight."

"I know you are, kid," Faith said. "I'll see you around." This last seemed to encompass Dean as well, since she threw him a wink as she turned away and threw one leg over her bike, then settled the helmet in place and drove off. Dean tried not to read too much promise into that wink, but failed miserably. He was looking forward to it.

Dean ushered the kid into the Impala, and then slid behind the wheel himself and pulled out onto the road.

Dean didn't spend a lot of his time on the road rescuing victims; usually the victims of angry spirits were long dead themselves or had their own transportation. When it did happen, usually they were more of the 'how can I possibly thank you?' damsel-in-distress type, and Dean did his best to let them express their gratitude. So it was a little weird to have a kid in the Impala, but after all, Dean had grown up in this car with Sammy only a few years behind. Besides, he liked kids. In theory.

Joey didn't seem inclined to talk, but Dean couldn't resist questioning him a little further. This job was turning out to be weirder than he'd expected, and any way to get an advantage would be welcome.

"You said those guys were helpers," Dean said.

"Yeah?"

"Did you ever see their boss?"

"Some old farmer dude in a dress," the kid said. "Like really, really old. Older than my grandpa."

"A dress?" Dean repeated. At least he knew their boss wasn't a chick in leather pants. That was useful.

"Not a dress like a lady wears," the kid said, struggling to explain. "Like a nightgown or something."

"Okay, kid, I got ya," Dean said. A robe. Only certain special kinds of wackos dressed up in robes for their kidnap victims. He asked a couple more questions, but the kid didn't know anything else, or didn't feel like talking, and so he let it go.

The radio hummed at a low volume, and Joey directed their route, pointing this way and that to tell Dean where to turn. They drove toward town and detoured around the bars and motels where Dean had been, winding their way through narrow side streets all laid out in a perfect grid, the houses small and close together. Old toys were scattered in the front yards, and torn-down cars rested on blocks in the driveways. Porchlights lit up little spheres of light in front of each house, and behind windows shone the blue flame of TV screens. It was a part of Placerville that Dean usually would have missed, the part where normal life went on without hauntings or infestations, where people worried about things like bills and report cards and never knew when he passed through town.

"You can drop me here," Joey said, and Dean stopped the car in front of a corner store. Obviously he didn't trust Dean enough to show him his house. Smart. It was what Dean himself would've done if he was in that position, either now or at the age of ten.

"Listen," Dean said, quick before the kid jumped out and ran away. "You ever see one of those guys again, or if you remember anything else that happened that might help us stop them, you can call me at this number." He scribbled his cell number on the little pad he used to impersonate a police officer, then handed the page to Joey.

"Yeah, all right," the kid said. He opened the door, then turned back to Dean almost reluctantly. "Hey, thanks." He didn't elaborate.

"No problem, kid," Dean answered. "Anytime."

He nodded seriously and jumped out of the car, shutting the door behind him before he ran off toward another line of tiny houses, and Dean pulled away onto the quiet streets and drove back toward the center of town.

He was headed in the direction of the motel, but instead of returning to his empty room, he turned toward the downtown strip. The shopfronts were dark and shuttered and the town had a deserted look, but there were a few bars whose windows glowed with weak neon light. Dean pulled the Impala up to the curb outside the little diner where he'd eaten lunch only a few hours before.

Warm yellow light spilled out onto the sidewalk from the plate-glass windows, a bright oasis in the dark, dusty street. Inside, a worn Formica counter and a grill took up the left wall and some narrow booths occupied the rest of the space. A few patrons sat eating, and one lone waitress stood behind the counter, refilling salt shakers from a canister. As Dean pushed open the door, a bell tinkled softly, announcing his presence. He walked to the back of the room and took a seat at the counter.

The waitress took her time getting to him, but when she came around she set a glass of water in front of him. She was neither young nor old, with tinted blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and a face scrubbed clean of makeup. "What'll it be?" she asked.

Dean ordered a cup of coffee and a slice of pie. The waitress brought them to him along with a fork and a napkin, and moved away, back toward the half-filled salt shakers.

The pie was peach, and it was delicious. Thick, juicy slices of fruit spilled out of a flaky crust, the flavor brassy and bold like a peach should be, but with a nearly-hidden layer of complexity beneath. There was a hint of spice as well, like maybe someone had sprinkled a bit of cinnamon in the filling. It complimented the peaches perfectly. Country music played softly on the radio, someone talked about the weather, and a newspaper page crinkled in the background. Dean finished his pie and pulled out the plain notebook he used as a journal.

He flipped to a blank page and began sketching the sword he'd seen in Faith's closet. It had a solid handle, crafted for strength and wrapped with leather for a good grip: this was a weapon that got a lot of use. The narrow crossbar made it versatile, but didn't do much to guard against injury. The blade was long, longer than was practical for a woman of Faith's height, sharp and well-cared for. One thing was sure: there was a lot more to this girl than he'd seen at first glance.

At the library, he'd made copies of the articles in Faith's motel room, and he looked them over now, and tried to read. His eyes followed the path of the words across the page and tracked over the grainy pictures, but he couldn't focus on them. No matter how many times he tried to tear his mind away from her, Dean's mind kept returning to Faith, from the way she kissed him, hot and hungry and careless, to the way she nearly flew during the fight and the steady, knowing look in her eyes as she watched him in the pool hall.

One way or another, this girl was the key to the entire hunt. Still, her every action seemed to point in a different direction, and the harder he tried to figure her out, the less he seemed to know.

In the end, Dean was left with more questions than he'd come in with. At least the place had great pie. He got another piece for the road, and headed back to the motel.

In the parking lot, he pulled the key out of his pocket and slid it into the lock, juggling the styrofoam container holding his pie and hoping not to drop it. When he pushed open the door, he was preoccupied, and he wasn't paying as much attention as maybe he should've. It was a mistake he couldn't afford to make, and because of it, he didn't realize until he was inside the room with the door shut behind him that he was not alone.

A dark figure lounged in the desk chair, feet propped up on the little desk. With only the dim light from the streetlights outside, Dean couldn't identify the person, but he had a pretty good idea who it might be.

"About time," she said.

Dean hit the lights and wished for his gun. "Faith," he said.

"Winchester," she greeted him smoothly, not getting up. "What were you doing out there?" He knew she didn't mean the diner.

"What are you doing here?" he countered. All around the room were obvious signs of what she'd been doing -- his clothes spilled in a messy pile out of his duffel, pillows crooked and towels askew in the bathroom. He tried to feel mad that she'd broken into his room and gone through his things, but he had a vivid memory of doing the same to her and he couldn't quite get that anger going like he wanted.

"I'm askin' you a question, is what I'm doin'."

Dean still didn't know who or what this chick was, or what she was up to. He didn't know what he'd expected from her, but it wasn't this quiet questioning. When she walked across a room, she was full of a powerful energy strong enough that he could almost smell it, but now she sat so still she was like a snake coiled and waiting for prey.

"I was lookin' for you," he answered. "Or whoever made those kids disappear."

She cocked her head to the side as if she were considering what he said. With heavy black eyeliner around her eyes and lipstick that was shiny red on her mouth, she was shocking against the plain, drab backdrop of the motel room. She sat reclining in the chair, feet still propped against the desk, but nothing about this encounter was relaxed or easy.

"I didn't take those kids," she said. The words were simple, but her voice had a hard edge to it, of anger maybe. She was defensive.

"No." He hadn't quite drawn his thoughts all the way out to conclusions yet, but when she said it he realized it was true. She wasn't all sweetness and light either, sugar and spice and everything nice. But the numbers just didn't add up to her being behind the disappearances, not like he'd thought at first.

She stood swiftly and braced her hands in her back pockets. "You make a habit of going lookin' for killers?"

"Only on special occasions, Sweetheart."

"Yeah, well, stay out of it next time, _Babe_." She took a step forward, then another, until she was about an arm's length from Dean. "You're messing with things you don't understand, and it's gonna get you killed."

Was that a warning or a threat? He had no way to tell.

"That's what they all say," Dean answered with a laugh. He had to laugh, really, because it was either that or get pissed off.

Things had been like this with her since the start, though. He couldn't get a read on this girl to save his life. She was hot and cold, kicking ass one minute and saving him the next, and she'd kept him guessing for weeks now. Conviction was everything in the hunt, and when Dean put his life at risk all he had was that thin bright line between good and evil, right and wrong. Faith did things to that conviction that Dean had never seen before, turned everything he knew on its ear and left him in a constant state of uncertainty, but all he could do was keep coming back for more.

"I mean it, Pretty Boy," she said, shoving him in the shoulder, hard enough that he stumbled back a step. "You stay out of it."

"It's a little late for that. I'm in this." He stepped closer to her again, so that they were just a breath apart. His height gave him the upper hand, but being so close was giving him flashbacks of fucking her against a bathroom wall. Mental pictures of hot, sweaty flesh and hungry kisses flashed through his mind with images of leather and lace. There was no question about this at least -- he wanted her again, and fast.

Her brown eyes met his, and he could see a reflection of his own confusion. It wasn't just him, then: neither of them knew what the fuck was going on. But overwhelming the hunt and the mystery and just about everything else for the moment, he could see desire drawn deep in her eyes. Thank God.

She must've recognized it too, because they lunged for each other like throwing a punch, meeting in the middle so hard that Dean could taste his own blood in the kiss.

It went on like that, more like a fight than like anything you might call _lovemaking_, but Dean had never liked that word anyway. He tried to pull her in close, but she was already there, pushing his back against the door with a strength she shouldn't have had. His dick was hard already, shockingly and achingly hard, and every time she moved -- twisting and writhing like a stripper on a pole -- his nerve endings cried out in pain.

He reached for her, wanting his hands on some part of her body and willing to settle for just about anything. His fingers found the soft flesh of her breast and squeezed it through layers of fabric, and she arched into him and cried out as if she were hurting, too.

Then her hands were at his waist and her fingers dug roughly into his belly as she grabbed at his belt buckle and pulled apart the button-fly of his jeans before shoving them down, and the hunger and the fury of the moment might actually have had Dean blacking out a little bit, because somehow her jeans came off and a condom rolled on him, and then she was climbing him like a tree and he didn't remember how it happened at all.

Her pulse was thumping underneath his tongue, hot and fierce and human, to the pace of his own wanting. His brain was greying out around the edges with the force of it, and if he couldn't be inside her in another minute he might just die of it -- but one thought pushed its way through the fog of need.

He pulled back and looked her in the eye for a second. "Christo."

Nothing happened. No change in her face, no glowing of the eyes. Whatever else was going on, she was no demon.

Then she tilted her hips and Dean's cock slid inside her, and all he could think or feel was of tight wet heat, and the part of his mind that knew or cared about things like demons or kidnappings was silent.

Faith had her legs wrapped around him like a boa constrictor about to eat its next meal, and her heel digging into the small of his back. Dean's shoulders were pressed back against the door and his hands were full of her bare ass. Her hips pumped rhythmically, riding him against the door. As her body moved her tits rose and fell, lifting toward his face and then pulling away again each time. His hands were occupied, holding up her weight, and so Dean struggled with his lips and teeth to capture one of the moving targets, suckling through the thin layer of fabric that was her tank top. He was rewarded with a rich, low moan in his ear that sent shivers across his shoulder and down his spine.

Dean could feel her warmth spreading throughout his body, the familiar sensation that he was reaching the edge of the precipice and would soon go speeding over the edge. _Too soon_, he thought. _No, too soon too fast too--_

"Fuck," Faith said in his ear, "Fuck yeah, like that, just like that--" Dean did his best to breathe and not let it all be over too quickly, reciting the lyrics to "Nothing Else Matters" in his head. It was only a few more seconds before Faith shuddered and came in another burst of curses and shouts.

Dean knew it wasn't gonna last much longer no matter what he did -- he'd been hard for this girl for weeks -- so he flipped them around and braced her against the door to give himself the leverage he needed. One hand on her hip and one on the door, and Dean gave it to her, pounding into her with long, fast strokes. He'd seen this girl in a fight; he knew she could give as well as she got, and he wasn't worried about her delicate sensibilities. She didn't disappoint, either, digging in her heels and rising to meet his every thrust, urging him on with the dirtiest mouth he'd ever heard on a girl.

There was a rushing in his ears and Dean came hard, falling forward onto Faith and pinning her against the door. She flexed her inner muscles and milked the last of his climax out of him, and it felt so good he thought he might fall over.

"Fuck, Darlin', he said into her hair, one hand stroking the gorgeous curve of her ass. "That was amazing. But next time, can we do this in bed?"

"You got it, Sailor," she said. "Take me there." So he used the last of his strength to carry her over to the bed, and they collapsed into it in a heap, sweaty and sticky and with half their clothes still hanging off their bodies.

"You rest up," Faith ordered him. "I ain't done with you yet." Dean lay back with a smile on his face as she lit up a cigarette and flicked the ash on the carpet. He thought about just asking her all those questions he'd gone over in the diner, but he'd never been much for pillow talk. Besides, he didn't think she'd actually answer anyway. He wouldn't have.

After a minute, he realized he still had his boots on and his jeans around his ankles, and he toed them off. They fell to the carpet below with a satisfying _thud_.

He rolled to one side and leaned on his elbow, watching as Faith smoked her cigarette. Her face was damp with sweat, eyeliner smudged. Her tank top still had a round wet spot from his mouth. He reached out and traced a circle there until her nipple stood up firm underneath, then he pinched the little nub and rolled it between thumb and forefinger. Faith arched her back and rocked her hips from side to side, her lips curved in a satisfied smile. She did not stop smoking her cigarette, though.

Dean pressed a kiss to Faith's navel, just below where the tank top ended, then one to each hipbone. He positioned himself between her knees, and leaned down to taste her as she finished smoking.

Faith was tough and hard when she needed to be, but underneath it all she was like every other girl, and here was the proof. He pressed the flat of his tongue to her clit, pink and gleaming like a pearl in an oyster, and still soaked from their fuck just minutes before. He ate her out thoroughly and efficiently, using lips and tongue and fingers together, adding in a few twists and tricks he'd learned along the way. She squirmed above him, breathing heavily, and Dean spared one hand to pin down her hips and hold her in place. When her moans sped up, Dean looked up from his work to see her face as she came.

Her hair was spread across the pillow in a tangle all around her head, and one of her hands gripped the side of the nightstand as if for support. With the other hand, she was squeezing and rubbing her nipple. As he watched, he could feel her muscles shudder around his fingers, and she threw her head back and panted out her climax.

Dean wiped his face on the edge of the bedsheet, and a moment later Faith was pulling him up the bed toward her and pushing him down on his back. She straddled his legs, pinning him to the mattress, and pulled off her tank top over her head, then unsnapped her lacy black bra and dropped it on the floor as well, revealing round, firm breasts. He reached up to feel one, but she slapped him away.

"My turn now," Faith said, with a dimpled grin that made her look more relaxed and natural than he'd ever seen her before. Even as she pressed one arm to his chest and held him there, helpless, Dean lay back and let her have her way. She leaned forward, resting her weight on the hand in the middle of Dean's chest, and then lowered her hips to meet his, sheathing his cock inside her in one fluid movement.

She might still be trying to kill him, Dean thought, but what a way to go.


	3. Living After Midnight

When Dean woke the next morning, he was alone. He blinked up at the ceiling several times and vaguely remembered hearing, in a post-coital haze, a door slamming and a motorcycle revving up.

He punched the pillow twice to make it more comfortable, then rolled over to his right side. In front of his eyes was the motel's cheap nightstand with his second-best hunting knife sticking straight out of it, driven an inch deep into the surface of the wood. Dean's first reaction was to drop his arm down to the place where the mattress met the box spring, where the knife should have been safely stowed. Not there. Of course not, because it was right in front of his face.

Levering himself up on one arm, Dean looked closer. Stuck between the knife and the splintered table was a piece of paper, with a brief note in messy, completely un-girly handwriting: _if you still want in, meet me at the diner at 11 tonite_.

Dean rolled over and shut his eyes again. Working with Faith, taking her information at face value, putting his life in danger based on her word, was a terrible idea. But he had all day to think about that. Right now he was sore and dehydrated and a little sticky, and sleep sounded like a great plan.

He was awakened again by his phone ringing, a tinny electronic guitar riff in the quiet room. He squinted into the dim light of the room, which seemed incredibly bright, and fumbled blindly on the floor before finding his jeans and pulling the phone out of the pocket.

"Hello?"

"Dean? It's Bobby. I got the info you were lookin' for, here."

Dean stared at the plain beige wall, trying to shake the sleep from his mind. What had he been looking for?

"'Fraid it's not real useful, though. The motorcycle is registered to a dead woman."

Dean stood up abruptly and began to pace as he listened.

"One Faith Lehane. Says here she was killed last year, trying to escape from prison."

"Brown hair, brown eyes?" Dean asked. "About five-six?"

"Yep," Bobby said. "Pretty little thing."

"It say what she was in for?" Dean asked, and on the other end of the line he could hear papers rustling for a few seconds before Bobby answered.

"Murder One, three counts. With assault, theft, and a whole mess of other stuff."

"Huh." Dean stopped in the middle of the room and scratched his belly. He could've asked Bobby to try to find a photo, but he really didn't need to. He knew who she was. And she'd seemed pretty alive the last time he'd seen her. Definitely not a spirit or a zombie. He'd checked her flesh himself, thoroughly. "The registration on the bike: is it up to date?"

There was more rustling over the line. "Well, I'll be damned," Bobby said slowly. "It is. Tags, inspection, the whole works. Done up all nice and proper."

"Don't want to get pulled over when you're dead," Dean said.

"It'd be inconvenient," Bobby agreed.

Dean thanked him for the information and hung up. All around him, the room was a shambles. Bedcovers tangled and sweaty, clothes tossed on top of the furniture, and the mess that Faith had made the day before when she searched his things. Too late, he stopped to hope that she hadn't taken anything important. On the nightstand, her note lay like a gauntlet, a challenge thrown down.

Dean yanked his knife out of the table and pocketed the note. If he was going hunting tonight, he had to be prepared.

He headed out for a round of the town archives, making only a quick stop for coffee and a jelly doughnut on the way. As much as Dean hated spending all day hunched over dusty books, there were some things he liked even less. One was going in blind. He'd been doing it too long on this job, bumbling around and following tips that led him into trouble after trouble. Dad wasn't here and neither was Sammy. Dean would have to do the research himself this time if it was gonna get done at all.

The starting point was the county records' office, for a look at the property on Tank Farm Road: who owned it, what the tanks were for, and any recent sales or disputes with neighbors.

Then it was on to the library, for a look at those dusty books. He started with the present and worked his way back through time and outward to include the town's history and its paranormal underbelly. The library was quiet, a large open room filled with books and disturbed only by the quiet sound of patrons walking back and forth on the indoor-outdoor carpeting, accented by the rustle of turning pages. A clock on the wall showed the time, but its hands turned silently, and Dean paid little attention as the hours whirled away.

When he left the library, he was armed with the pieces of a puzzle that didn't quite fit together to make a complete picture: missing children across four counties, rising crop yields, and a local crime wave that included everything from drunk and disorderly to cattle rustling.

Faith was another story, a puzzle all her own. Like a good hunt, the outline of her story was not yet clear, so that every time Dean discovered a single part of her there were ten parts that remained hidden. And like a hunt, he might never discover the entire truth about her, the whole mystery. Knowing that there was a story hidden there was half the battle, though.

He was confident that the story of the missing kids would become clear. Faith herself might not be so easy, but --he remembered the night before-- he would enjoy the hunt.

Back at the motel, Dean stripped off his jeans and t-shirt and set his amulet on the tiled counter before stepping into a steaming hot shower. He hated to admit it to himself, but he was a little nervous about tonight's hunt. When he hunted alone, he got to lay out the battle plans and call all the shots. Tonight, he would not be entirely in control. It wasn't what he was used to.

There was one surefire cure for nerves that had never failed him.

Dean let one hand slide down his soapy chest and wrap around his dick, stroking up and down slowly, one thumb drifting across the sensitive head. He thought of Faith, pushing him down on the bed and riding him like that motorcycle, her tits bouncing and her head thrown back with a big smile on her face as she fucked him. He braced one hand against the slick tile wall and came, shooting his load and watching it spin away down the shower drain. He breathed heavily, drawing in the wet air, catching his breath.

After a few moments, he shut off the water and grabbed a towel off the rack. Faith was still on his mind, the hunt was still approaching, but the sharp edge of anxiety was gone. He felt calm, in control. Whatever this night threw at him, Dean knew he could handle it.

At ten-thirty, Dean pulled the Impala to the curb outside the diner, a half-hour before he was supposed to meet Faith. He'd been wearing down the motel's carpet with pacing, and it was getting him nowhere. There was nothing worse than hunting on an empty stomach; he might as well get some dinner. Inside, he took a seat at the booth in the corner, keeping his back to the wall so that he could see her when she came in, and ordered a burger and fries, with another piece of peach pie.

Faith blew in forty minutes later, nothing about her subtle at all. She had her leather pants on again, shining blue-black in the cheerful yellow light of the diner, and all eyes followed her as she walked through the room. She slid into the booth across from Dean with a smile and a flip of her hair.

"Hey Lover," she said, stealing a fry off his plate. "You ready to rumble?"

"I'm always ready," Dean said, meeting her eyes with a grin. She was wearing her heavy makeup, eyes ringed with thick dark paint and lashes long and black. She looked more like a girl on her way to a club than like someone bound for a fight, but Dean didn't mind. Her eyes were a rich chocolate brown with an excited gleam in them, and she held his gaze steadily without looking away. That told him more than anything else -- she was as ready as he was to kick ass and take names. Maybe more so.

Faith grinned at him, flashing a dimple in her cheek, and slid out of the booth. She walked out of the diner with a switch in her step, hips swaying from side to side. Dean grabbed a twenty from his wallet and dropped it on the table and then followed her out the door, staying well behind so he could watch her go.

Her bike was parked at the curb, but when Dean stepped outside he found Faith leaning against his car. In the dark street, basking in the reflected light of the diner, the woman and the machine were two of a kind. Strong lines, sexy curves, sharp edges. Wrapped in black, all dressed up in lipstick and a fresh coat of wax, and ready for a night on the town. It was a pretty picture.

One part of him appreciated the vision in leather and chrome in front of him, but another part of Dean's mind was thinking _murder one, three counts_. Even as he opened the door and sat behind the wheel, and Faith slid into the passenger seat next to him, he realized that this might be the biggest mistake of his life. He knew next to nothing about this chick, and most of it was bad. On paper, trusting her made no sense at all.

Then, nothing in Dean's life made sense on paper. He twisted the key and the Impala roared to life beneath him. Zeppelin poured out of the stereo, Faith rested her booted feet on the dash, and Dean didn't bother to stop her. It was going to be a good night, he told himself. If not, he was in some serious trouble.

They were quiet for a few minutes, no sounds filling the car but the rumble of the engine and Robert Plant singing about California. Dean snuck a glance at Faith as he drove. She looked supremely relaxed, feet up and spine curled into a slouch, but her fingers twitched and tapped out the rhythm of the song against her knee with a kind of nervous energy that told a different story. He took girls out to dinner sometimes in the Impala, dressed up in perfume and lace, pretending at romance. Faith was pretty much the opposite of that. And they were going hunting, not to some kind of attempt at normalcy that could never go anywhere. It was a long time since he'd been hunting with anyone not named Winchester. Hell, since he'd been hunting with anyone at all. It was a good feeling, having someone else in the car. Good enough that it was making him ignore all kinds of danger signs, but Dean pushed that thought away. He couldn't afford distractions tonight.

They reached the outskirts of town, and Dean paused for a moment at an intersection where one blinking yellow light hung suspended above the street and four empty roads stretched away into the distance. A huge full moon shone down, lighting the hills and buildings in the darkened town. He pulled through and headed in the direction of Tank Farm, where they'd been yesterday. Based on his research at the library earlier that day, there was something strange going on at that place. He opened his mouth to share what he'd learned with Faith, but she spoke first.

"All right, here's the plan, Pretty Boy," Faith said suddenly. "I'll go in first; you watch my back." She was calm, confident, sure of herself. There was no question in her voice. "You get the hostage, then get out of the way before the real fireworks start."

Dean's jaw tightened, but he didn't say anything. "And one more thing," she said. "These nuts are human. No guns."

"That's a shitty plan," Dean observed conversationally after a moment of silence.

"Take it or leave it," she said cheerfully.

He was almost tempted to say he'd leave it. "What d'you need me for?" he asked, trying not to sound like a whiny bitch.

"You're for later," Faith said in a sultry voice, running a hand up his arm. Dean kept his eyes on the road. "You watch my back, all right? Backup's no good if I gotta worry about you, too."

Dean let that go for a few seconds and then responded, changing the subject. "What are we talking about here, cult sacrifice?" he asked. He knew she was right about backup. It wouldn't work if she couldn't trust him, and they hadn't worked together enough for that. Plus, if he pushed the issue, he really would be a whiny bitch. That didn't mean he liked the plan.

"Yep," she answered, showing no surprise in the question or the change of subject. "Full moon, so I guess they'll do the deed tonight." She drew one finger across her throat to illustrate.

In the county records, Dean had found Farm Bureau data going back fifty years, and there had been a big jump in crop yields in just the last eight, with no noticeable cause. The increase was big enough that it wasn't just new fertilizer or a uniquely specialized crop rotation. Coincidentally, there had been a lot more kidnappings and mysterious disappearances around Placerville in that time. Fewer homeless people, too. All that, combined with what he'd seen out at the farm the other day, pointed to a fertility ritual. He hadn't been sure they'd time the sacrifice to the full moon, but it made sense.

He turned the car off the main highway and headed up the narrow road which led past the squat metal tanks. In the moonlight, they looked more than ever like something out of a sci-fi movie, gleaming with bluish light amidst the tall grass. When they got to the gate where he'd turned in the other day, Faith pointed up the road toward the low hills in the distance and said, "Keep going."

The road grew increasingly rough as they went, and Dean slowed the car, wincing as he heard gravel kicking up against the undercarriage. They rattled on past more tanks, each one just like the one before, bordered by a strong fence, topped with round spirals of barbed wire. The fence was more than anyone would need to keep their cattle from escaping, a lot more than the neighboring farms had.

As they left the tanks behind, they reached the low hills which had seemed so far away before. The landscape was dotted with oak trees, scarce at first and then closer and closer together. It was here that Faith finally directed him to stop, below an old tree growing outside the fence, casting its branches out across the road. The moonlight was so bright that there was a deep pocket of shadow under the tree's branches, and Dean pulled the Impala around, close to the trunk.

Faith climbed out and stretched like a cat, and Dean was reminded once again of his first impression of her, as a predator stalking prey. The image seemed more appropriate than ever, out in the country away from the lights of town. She grinned at him over the top of the car, dark lips shining against white teeth in the moonlight.

"Come on," she said, jerking her head in the direction of the trees. Against every kind of logic Dean knew, he followed.

Leaves and acorns crunched underfoot as they walked through the trees. Faith carried no visible weapons, and her arms swung easily at her sides. Dean had a long knife strapped to his ankle and a set of brass knuckles in his pocket, and tucked into the waistband of his jeans he carried his Glock, contrary to Faith's instructions. He didn't intend to shoot anyone if he could help it, but well -- sometimes a hunter had to do things in the line of duty that they wouldn't do in the light of day. Faith would just have to understand, he told himself.

Walking side by side, Dean and Faith crested a hill, and their objective was suddenly right in front of them. Gnarled, ancient oak trees formed the border for a perfectly round clearing, and in the center was a bonfire which threw light onto everything surrounding it. Circling the fire was a ring of figures robed in brown, swaying and chanting over the crackling of the flames.

Faith stopped Dean with a hand to his arm, then pointed off to the right, signaling that he should skirt the edge of the clearing. He nodded, and crouched low to pass by the group without being seen.

About a third of the way around, he stopped behind the trunk of a large tree. He could still see Faith's position to one side of the bonfire, so he'd be in position to back her up. On the other side was an old man in a white robe, closer to the flames than the other figures, who seemed to be leading the chanting.

What he did not see was a hostage. If this was a cult sacrifice, where was the victim?

The flames danced in front of his eyes and the men chanted and the figure in white raised his arms to the heavens, and Dean began to worry seriously for the first time that day.

A sacrifice with no victim, and a demon hunter without a target waiting in the wings? Convenient.

Dean had always expected to end his life in a blaze of glory, not as fresh meat led to the slaughter by a great pair of tits. He would not be a sacrifice to some no-name fertility goddess. If Faith thought that a few rounds between the sheets was enough to earn his unconditional trust, she had another think coming. Sure, he'd followed her into this, but nothing was holding him here.

He was about to turn tail and run away in a brave and manly way, when Faith stepped into the clearing.

The brightness of the flames meant that everything around the fire was lit up brilliantly, but the shadows under the trees were dark and complete. It seemed almost as if Faith was appearing out of nowhere when she stepped from the darkness. She came up behind the two guys who were closest to her and grabbed them by the fabric of their shapeless brown robes, knocking their heads together with such force that one of the men actually lifted off his feet. Then she pushed them back toward their original position, hard, so that each banged into the next man in line and created a domino effect, knocking over several more guys in robes before they had a chance to react.

When the initial surprise wore off, though, there was none of the melee of confusion that Dean would've expected from a group faced with such an unexpected disruption. The robed people stopped their chanting and divided into teams, then rushed Faith together, engaging her all at once.

She handled them easily at first, using that same uncanny speed and strength that Dean had observed the other day, spinning into kicks that struck with such force that they sent men flying backwards into the waiting crowd of enemies. After the first three, he realized she was doing it on purpose, turning one dispatched fighter into a projectile to take out two or three others waiting in the wings.

Once again, Dean was amazed to see her fight -- mesmerized and a little turned on, too. It was like watching a Bruce Lee movie in person, a constant impression of _wow, did you just see that?_ combined with _I heard he does his own stunts, can you believe it?_, only this time instead of Bruce Lee there was a hot chick who Dean could picture naked with a high degree of accuracy.

There were nearly thirty of the robed men, and Faith was in constant motion as she fought them, leaving a trail of stunned and unconscious bodies behind her. Even more impressive to Dean was the fact that she was using no weapons he could see, not even the one environmental advantage he'd fully expected to be brought into play, the bonfire. Had it been him, he would've begun by throwing a couple of those guys right into the fire, just to see how fast their cheap brown robes went up in smoke, but Faith stuck strictly to the narrow strip of ground between the trees and the flames, and seemed satisfied to knock them down until they could not get back up again.

He remembered her saying _These nuts are human_, and he shook his head. He'd seen a lot of human beings do some pretty awful things, and killing off kids to increase your own farm profits was pretty damn awful. As far as he was concerned, the world wouldn't be much worse off if those fuckers bit the dust, human or not.

No sooner had the thought entered his mind than he noticed the white-robed leader was moving, striding across the clearing toward Faith with purpose. When he was still halfway across the clearing from her, silhouetted against the bright glow of the fire, the leader raised his arm. He had a gun pointed directly at Faith.

Dean reached for his own gun, drawing and cocking it fast, but it wasn't fast enough. There was no clear shot between the mass of writhing, moving bodies in the fight, and Faith herself was between him and the leader.

Hoping to get a better angle on the shot, Dean moved to his left, back under cover of the trees, keeping his gun trained on the leader. He'd only gone about two paces when the man fired. Faith jerked in response, the man smiled, and Dean knew the shot had hit its target.

Faith twisted around, and as she did so Dean saw firelight glint off something metallic protruding from her shoulder. There was no gaping hole or spreading pool of blood, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She frowned, and reached one arm over her opposite shoulder to remove the projectile, and looked at it with a little frown on her face.

A split second later, she was tackled by at least three of the cult members, and this time instead of fighting them off like Bruce Lee, she flew forward and landed on her face in the dirt. The tiny metal object bounced from her outstretched hand, and Dean saw it clearly for the first time. It was a tranquilizer dart.

As soon as Faith's body landed in the dirt and lay still for a few moments, a cheer erupted from the robed men. Two of them held her drugged body down, while another appeared with a length of heavy chain and bound her hand and foot. Dean could tell that these guys had come prepared with special equipment, and they were taking no chances on letting Faith escape.

When they'd arrived, the cult members had been spread in an even circle around the fire. Now they all gathered around Faith, pushing each other out of the way to get a good look at her chained and unconscious body. Dean could hear an excited babble arising from the group, and he saw many of them slap each other on the shoulder and shake hands, congratulating each other on the capture.

Soon, the cheers died down and the voice of the leader echoed across the clearing. "Lady!" he cried, facing the fire with both arms upraised, addressing it as if it was a living entity. "Oh, generous Lady of the hills, in honor of your wondrous and continued bounty, we present you with a sacrifice befitting your greatness." He paused dramatically, and Dean rolled his eyes. These cult worshippers were all the same. "We bring you -- the Slayer!"

"The Slayer!" echoed the brown-robed guys in creepy unison, or at least the ones who were still conscious, which was about half.

Keeping his gun raised, Dean stepped back farther under cover of the trees, out of sight of the cultists. In the car, Faith told him _get out of the way before the fireworks start_. That had been a shitty plan from the start, anyway. He was involved now, whether she liked it or not. With the super-powered one out of the way -- _Slayer_, he thought to himself -- it was time for a lowly human to get the job done.

The ground began to shake slightly beneath Dean's feet, and a low rumble of noise drifted through the air. Above his head, oak leaves rattled on the branches, and a few shook loose and rained down around him.

The rumble of noise grew louder and louder, until it sounded like thunder. Spasms shook the ground in waves, and Dean reached out a hand and braced himself against a tree to keep his balance. Around the fire, the cultists were making no such effort. Only the white-robed leader was still standing; the brown-robed followers had all sunk to their knees and pressed their faces to the dirt.

Beyond the fire, Dean sensed movement against the sky, an indistinct shape of black against midnight blue. As it grew closer, the flames threw up light to meet it, and Dean could see a huge greenish face illuminated against the treeline. With two more thundering steps, it drew even with the edge of the clearing and then stopped.

Dean had never seen anything like this. Based on the crop yields and the cult guys themselves, he'd been expecting some kind of fertility goddess, but in his experience those were usually a lot more human-shaped. With really big breasts. This thing looked nothing like the overgrown belly-dancer they'd tangled with in Mobile. It was like some cross between a tree and a T-Rex, with hungry eyes and a huge jaw wrapped in rough bark, and clawlike arms draped in leaves and moss.

"Lady!" the leader exclaimed, lifting his arms higher. The followers repeated after him, pressing their faces closer to the ground. The Lady -- if that's what she was -- opened her mouth in a sick smile, revealing rows of pointed brown teeth, and Dean shuddered.

"Lady, we present you with a gift befitting your wondrous favors!" the leader crowed. He was repeating himself already.

"The Slayer," the tree lady said, her voice so low and thick it could barely be understood. A chill ran down Dean's spine at the sound, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. "This is the one? You are sure?"

"We are certain, my lady," the leader assured her. "We have tested her and found her abilities to match those of the prophecy."

"Excellent," said the goddess. "Bring her to me."

Crap, thought Dean. He was really going to have to go through with this. He checked the safety and raised the Glock to eye level, then lifted it further to sight down the barrel at the tree-thing's hideous gaping mouth.

Two of the cultists moved around to his left, bowing and scraping and lifting Faith's bound figure to feed her to the thing. For all her power and energy, she seemed oddly tiny now that her body was still. When the two men lifted her, holding her body between them, her figure was dwarfed by their broad shoulders and flowing robes, where a moment before she had been all action and motion, and she'd seemed to overpower the men by sheer will.

Dean stepped out of the shadow toward the goddess and fired. He held his gun with both hands to keep it steady, squeezing off five shots in quick succession.

His aim was good, and the gun fired true. The shots found their destination, hitting rapidly one after another. They sank into the thing's barklike hide, bits of wooden flesh flying off on impact.

Nothing happened.

Not what he'd been looking for, anyway. Dean had been hoping to injure the damned thing. Instead, she let out what might've been a low, grating laugh. Like her face, the sound was a twisted parody of nature, totally incompatible with the idyllic oak clearing, and Dean's skin crawled.

"Pathetic hubris," she said, voice thick like rain in the forest. "Your human weapons cannot harm me." She stepped forward toward him, and the ground shook under her feet. Dean wished for a chainsaw. Human weapon or not, he bet it could do a lot of damage. Still, the gun was the best he'd brought; he'd have to do better if he wanted to get rid of her.

"Bring her!" she commanded her followers. "Get him!" Dean glanced over in their direction. Several of the cultists began to rush him at her orders, and he stepped back toward the fire, using it for defensive positioning. He could feel the heat of the fire through his jacket, growing hotter with each inch, but this way the cultists could not rush him without risking the flames themselves. With his back to the flames, he could keep his focus on Faith.

The two men carrying Faith began moving again, walking slowly and awkwardly around the circle toward the tree-thing, as she had ordered. They would have to pass right by Dean as they made their way around the fire to get to her, though.

It seemed like the worst way to make a sacrifice that Dean could remember seeing. Though these local gods were a lot of things -- vain, theatrical, bloodthirsty -- they were rarely stupid. Something else was going on here, and Dean had an idea what it was. He didn't stop to analyze, just followed his instincts and stepped into the clearing with his gun drawn.

"Stop right there," he said, leveling the barrel at the two men carrying Faith. "This might not hurt her," he nodded toward the tree-thing, which definitely did not seem at all female. "But I bet human weapons will hurt you guys."

They stopped, which was answer enough.

"Bring her!" The tree-thing repeated, her voice quaking with hunger and impatience. Dean fought the urge to cover his ears.

The two men looked at each other, as if they were unsure of what to do. Dean lowered his gun a fraction of an inch and fired, sending a bullet into the kneecap of the man closest to him. This time, there was an immediate effect: the man howled in pain and dropped his grip on Faith's legs, clutching his own knee as blood spread across the fabric of his robe.

_Sorry, Faith_, Dean said silently. She'd said "no guns," but he figured she'd prefer a little collateral damage to getting crushed by that thing's enormous teeth.

Dean glanced at the other man, left holding Faith's arms. "Drop her," he said, "and get him out of here." He motioned at the two men with his gun. The guy obeyed quickly, leaving Faith's body in a cleared space next to the bonfire's leaping flames.

"Come and get her," he said loudly, turning to face the tree monster.

She hesitated for a split second, then strode forward, her path indirect as she strode around the curve of the clearing, giving the fire a wide clearance. The ground shook under her feet, and behind him the cultists trembled with awe, but Dean's own fear was gone now.

He flipped the safety on the Glock and shoved it in his back pocket, then lunged to the side and pulled a branch from the edge of the fire. He couldn't approach the goddess directly or Faith would be vulnerable to the cultists, and he couldn't stay too close or she would just reach right around him with those giant tree-branch arms. He stood as far away from Faith as he could, several paces separating them across open ground, with his makeshift torch upraised.

The goddess strode toward him quickly. She did not pause as she drew closer, but actually seemed to quicken her pace as if her plan was to force him out of the way with her bulk and speed.

At close range, she was tall enough that Dean could no longer see her twisted face. His vision was filled with the gigantic stems that formed her feet and legs, thick knotted trunks each bigger around than his whole body, wrapped in moss and vines. If one of those came down on top of him, he'd be done for.

Impatiently, he pushed the thought away. He might not be able to see her face, but he knew where to aim. There was only time for one shot here, so it would have to be a good one.

Reaching back, Dean tensed his muscles and hurled his torch in a high arc directly toward her midsection. The branch flew end-over-end through the air, a bright ember in the dark night.

When the flaming branch collided with her body, sparks flew out in every direction. The torch's light flickered and grew dim for a moment. But only a moment. As the branch fell away, the sparks caught in the moss and bark that covered her wooden body.

She stopped in her tracks and tried to use her hands and arms to beat out the flames, but the sparks only spread from her torso to the leaves and small branches that formed her fingers. Flames licked up one side of the gigantic torso and down the other, consuming first the bits of leaves and moss and then the bark that covered her.

It wasn't long before the goddess began to scream.

Her voice was somehow deep and shrill at the same time, a scream of terrible force that echoed across the landscape, edged with panic. This time, Dean didn't try to fight the urge; stripped of his only effective weapon, he covered his ears with both hands and backed away as flames spread across the body of the enormous figure in front of him. He could see her former worshippers running from her as quickly as they could move, some tripping over their robes as they went.

Walking backwards, unable to keep his eyes off the fiery body of the tree lady, Dean nearly fell over Faith's unconscious form. He stooped and touched his fingertips to her neck. The pulse beat strong just below the surface, but she didn't wake.

Dean stooped and lifted Faith in his arms, still wrapped in the cultists' chains. She seemed much smaller and lighter like this, unmoving and unresponsive. He'd held her up only the night before, pressed her against the motel room's flimsy door as he fucked her, but she'd seemed weightier then.

He shrugged and stood straighter, lifting her more securely, then turned and headed for the treeline. When he reached it, he stopped for a moment to look back.

Beside the center of the clearing was a towering pillar of fire, burning hot with orange and blue flames, hardly even recognizable as a walking, talking being. As he watched, the pillar collapsed with a final scream. What was left of the goddess's body fell apart in pieces and landed half in the bonfire her worshippers had built for her earlier that same day. On the edges of the clearing, the cultists scattered into the night, and Dean followed suit.

It was hard to run carrying an unconscious body, but Dean moved as fast as he could, cradling Faith's head against his chest. When he reached the car, he unlocked the door and settled her across the backseat as carefully as he could before sliding behind the wheel. He'd pick the locks on those chains later; for now he just had to get the hell out of here. He put his foot down on the gas pedal and pulled away in a storm of gravel.

He had not even reached the highway into town before Faith was stirring behind him. In the rearview mirror, he could see her body shifting on the back seat. She made a soft, confused noise in the back of her throat before she was fully awake. A few moments passed, and then once she was conscious Dean heard, "... the fuck?"

"Tranq gun," Dean answered, looking again into the rearview mirror and finding her eyes there. "And you know..."

"Chains."

"Yeah."

He didn't mention the way they'd been so excited to capture Faith, or ask why they'd called her _Slayer_. He didn't bring up the fact that the State of California thought she was dead. Everyone had secrets in this business, and if he started asking questions he might have to answer some, too.

She blinked slowly before responding. "What about the sacrifice? The victim."

"You were it, Sweetheart."

She turned her head and looked out the window as darkened fields and cattle pastures rolled past. "That's why the tranqs," Dean explained. "They were gonna feed you to a giant tree."

In the backseat, he heard the chains clink together a few times, and then a loud _clang_. The chains fell to the floor of the car. Dean tried not to think about what must've just happened, but it came to him anyway: she'd just pulled those things apart like they were paper.

She laughed, and when Dean looked up, he saw her face dimple up in the rearview mirror. "Good thing you had backup," he said.

"Mmm, very good," she agreed, sliding a hand across his shoulder. Next thing he knew she was climbing over the back of the bench seat into the passenger spot, the leather of her pants squeaking against the Impala's upholstery.

She traced two fingers up his thigh, upward along the inseam of his jeans. Dean shifted to allow her access, widening his knees as he licked his lips. Tension pulsed through his muscles, already full of adrenaline from the fight, and it didn't take much to get the blood racing in his veins again.

"How could I ever thank you?" she purred in his ear, and he was hard in a second.

Still sliding one hand up and down his inner thigh, Faith brought her other hand over and popped open the buttons on his fly deliberately, one by one.

Dean shifted the car into the right lane and eased off the gas, tilting his hips up to her hands, in no hurry to get back.

Faith pulled his jeans open and reached inside to free his cock, aching with anticipation already. She leaned down, her head between Dean's navel and the steering wheel. He felt her hair brush against his belly, and a warm breath of air on his skin. Then he felt nothing but tongue and lips and warm, wet suction.

He struggled to keep the Impala between the highway lines as Faith's head bobbed in his lap. Her lips were wrapped tight around his cock, tongue massaging him slowly and with intent. In the back of her throat, she moaned hungrily. Dean's eyelids fluttered with arousal and he struggled to keep them open, swearing aloud. Faith just laughed and drew him into her mouth even farther.

She knew what she was doing, sucking him in like a pro, like she was born to do this. Her mouth was a slick slide on his cock, hot and wet. Dean bit his lip, gripping his hands on the wheel until his knuckles were white, determined not to crash the car only because it might make Faith stop what she was doing and nothing would be worth that.

The world narrowed until the only things in it, all that mattered, were Faith's mouth and her tongue and her lips and the steering wheel in his hands like a lifeline. He arched his back, every muscle screaming with tension, body shifting restlessly in the tight space. All the while, Faith kept sucking him in, never backing off, hungry for anything he could give her. One small hand reached down between his legs and cupped his balls through the jeans, rubbed softly once and then again, and Dean let out a groan and came.

Faith swallowed, her throat pumping him dry, and Dean let the car slow to a crawl, breathing harshly through his mouth.

"Damn," he said. All the nerves, all the tension and anger and defensive energy had drained out of him, leaving him warm and calm and pleasantly loopy. "You are an angel."

Faith laughed low and throaty as she sat up. "That's a new one," she said.

A car flew by them in the left lane, its horn blaring out an insult as it passed. Dean turned the wheel and stepped on the gas again, a little reluctantly.

"Gimme your hand," Faith said, and drew his right arm away from the wheel, pressing his palm between her legs. Dean bit his lip and kept his eye on the road as he felt the heat seeping through the leather.

She put one of her own hands over his, pressing the heel of his hand to the center seam of her pants, tilting her hips and riding hard. With her other hand she squeezed her breast, pinching the nipple. It didn't take long. She arched her back once, twice, three times and she was panting out her climax, little moans and curses punctuating the shudders of her hips.

Dean opened his mouth and then shut it again silently, breathing out through his mouth. He wanted to talk but no words came into his mind, as if he'd forgotten every one he'd ever known.

"Hells yeah," she said. "I need a cigarette." And then she let go of his hand and moved away across the seat, rolling the window down and producing a pack he didn't even know she'd brought along, lighting one up and drawing in smoke like it was the elixir of life.

The Impala rolled into Placerville slowly, moving down the main street like a queen greeting her subjects, as Dean tried to remember which crappy motel he'd booked a room in.

Finally he found the right place and pulled up to the room. He opened the door and felt a cold draft, then looked down to find his jeans still open and his soft dick poking out of the gap in the fabric. Faith laughed as she got out of the car and slammed the door, and he buttoned up hastily and went to unlock the door.

She seemed to treat it as natural that he'd driven to his own hotel room, even though Dean would have taken her to her own room if he'd actually given it any thought. He toed off his boots and unstrapped the knife, laid the Glock on the nightstand next to the splinters left over from Faith's note just that morning. In the bathroom the shower started to run.

Dean felt calm, his muscles warm and sated. In his mind, he replayed the image of the tree-goddess-thing melting away into flames and ash, and he smiled. Then he stripped off his shirt, and went to join Faith in the shower.

This time, when Dean woke he was not alone.

It had been so late when they finally tumbled into bed that he'd gotten only a few hours' sleep. He opened his eyes to find Faith sitting at the desk, exactly where he'd found her the night before when she broke into his room. She was wearing nothing but a pair of black panties and one of his thin cotton undershirts. One knee was bent and her arm wrapped around her leg to rest on her foot, fingers restlessly moving back and forth across her toes.

"Yeah," she said in a soft voice. "A giant tree." Dean realized she was talking on her cell phone, but her voice was quiet enough that he could only make out a few words here and there. He wondered what kind of person she would call. He rolled to his side, propping himself up on one elbow to watch her, and she caught his eye and nodded a greeting.

"Right," she said into the phone, and then paused as if she was listening. "Uh-huh, a tranq gun."

Dean realized she must be checking in with someone, the way he would call his dad after a hunt. Somewhere, this woman who seemed so wild and free had an anchor that tied her to earth. It was another unexpected detail, sprung on him just when he thought he finally had this girl figured out. There was just no way to nail her down.

"Hey, it was no sweat," she said. Dean raised his eyebrows, and she winked at him in response. "Yeah, turns out trees burn."

She smiled with a softness that Dean hadn't seen before, her head turning down and away from him a little, looking pleased. "Yeah, yeah, you too," she said.

Then it was just, "Okay, see ya," and she clicked her phone shut and dropped it on the desk. She climbed onto the bed, crawling on hands and knees across the rumpled covers to Dean, then pressing her body along the length of his.

"You wanna go to Needles, Lover?" she asked, dragging her tongue across his neck.

"What's in Needles?" he asked, wrapping an arm around her waist and pressing one knee between her thighs.

"Sand demon," she said. "I could use some backup."

Dean tightened his arm on her waist and rolled with her, flipping them so she was pinned to the mattress beneath him.

"No way, Honey," he said, looking down into her brown eyes. "Partners."

Faith brought one hand to the back of his head and pulled his lips down to hers, then stopped at the last possible moment. When she spoke, her lips brushed against his own.

"Partners," she agreed.


End file.
